“The Trump Administration has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment, as the U.S. prepares to initiate the next stage of its campaign against the Soles drug cartel,” the Miami Herald reports.
“The planned attacks will seek to destroy military installations used by the drug-trafficking organization the U.S. says is headed by Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and run by top members of his regime.”
“Republicans are quickly tamping down President Donald Trump’s call to eliminate the Senate filibuster as they try to keep pressure on Democrats to end the 31-day government shutdown,” Politico reports.
“GOP leaders believed Thursday they were on track to reopen agencies as soon as next week. Then Trump threw a fresh complication into their laps overnight when he revived calls for Republicans to invoke the “nuclear option” and eliminate the 60-vote threshold for passing most legislation. Without it, Republican senators could reopen the government on their own.”
“But many GOP senators have vocally defended the filibuster, including Majority Leader John Thune, calling the 60-vote rule a fundamental feature of the Senate and one that works to conservatives’ benefit in the long run.”
NOTUS: Republican leadership rejects Trump push to nuke the filibuster.
“The Senate voted Thursday to approve a resolution that would block President Trump’s tariffs on countries around the world, the third in a trio of rebukes of the president’s trade policy this week,” CBS News reports.
“Amid a national redistricting fight, Ohio officials agreed Friday to a new electoral map that boosts Republican odds of winning two more House seats that could help the party retain power in Washington in next year’s congressional elections,” the Washington Post reports.
“The compromise map — crafted by a bipartisan commission — won support from Democrats by granting them a reprieve in one additional House seat that had been under consideration. Because the map received bipartisan support from the commission, it does not need the approval of the Republican-dominated legislature.”
Politico: Republicans notch redistricting win in Ohio — but it could have been worse for Democrats.
“Members of the military will be paid on Oct. 31 despite a lapse in funding during the ongoing government shutdown,” USA Today reports.
“To cover $5.3 billion in military pay, OMB said officials have pulled monies from three different financial accounts, including $2.5 billion from a military spending account allocated as part of the Big Beautiful Bill.”
“California Governor Gavin Newsom is betting his political future on a controversial ballot measure that would redraw the state’s congressional maps to favor Democrats. A coalition of super wealthy and working people is giving him a big financial advantage,” Bloomberg reports.
“Over the past 11 weeks, Newsom and his allies brought in more than $120 million for Proposition 50, about three times the total raised by the proposal’s opponents.”
“New York voters are turning out early in high numbers for a mayoral race that’s captured the country’s attention,” Bloomberg reports.
“After six days of early voting, 398,477 ballots have been cast, according to the New York City Board of Elections. That’s more than double the total of early voters in the 2021 general election and already higher than the 384,338 early votes during June’s primary.”
Peter Wehner: “Give Donald Trump this much: He has never tried to hide his malice, his lawlessness, or his desire to inflict pain on others. These were on vivid display when he engaged in a multipart conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and stood by as a mob of supporters sought to hang his vice president. These were displayed, as well, every day during his 2024 vengeance campaign. Yet more than 77 million Americans decided that he was the man with whom they wanted to entrust the care of this nation.”
“For more Americans than not, and for many more evangelical Christians than not, Trump is the representative man of our time. His ethic is theirs. So are his corruptions. And for those of us who, in our younger years, revered America as a shining city upon a hill, a nation of nations, the ‘last, best hope of earth,’ this is quite a painful period. America has lost its moral bearings; as a result, it has also lost its moral standing in the world.”
“A curtain of darkness is settling over our nation. And it’s getting ever harder to avoid connecting the authoritarian dots.”
Tom Nichols: “The president says he wants to resume nuclear testing but doesn’t seem to know why.”
“Barack Obama used to be confident America would survive Donald Trump. He’s not so sure anymore,” CNN reports.
“The 44th president can still draw a crowd of thousands or dial Gavin Newsom’s cell phone to strategize about the California governor’s redistricting push. But friends who talk to him say it’s become clear that eight years out of the White House, darkness and anxiety have crept in on Obama’s message of hope and change.”
“After deliberately stepping back during the Biden years — while remaining the party’s biggest fundraiser even then — Obama and his aides are reworking his longstanding strategy of minimizing his public presence to allow the next generation of Democrats to emerge. Trump’s moves to block Democrats from power since his return to the White House and his calls to indict or shut down liberal institutions might, Obama fears, deny that next generation the chance.”
The U.S. canceled President Trump’s planned Budapest summit with Vladimir Putin after a Russian memo to Washington holding firm to hard line demands on Ukraine was swiftly followed by a tense call between the two countries’ top diplomats, the Financial Times reports.
A new Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll finds Democrats up 7 points on the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot, a public that prefers checks and balances over unilateral presidential action, that 55% of voters think Donald Trump is “acting like he is above the law, consolidating power like a king.”
“Russia has in recent months attacked Ukraine with a cruise missile whose secret development prompted Donald Trump to abandon a nuclear arms control pact with Moscow in his first term as U.S. president,” Reuters reports.
SpaceX is set to receive $2 billion to develop satellites that can track missiles and aircraft under President Trump’s Golden Dome project, the Wall Street Journal reports.
This week’s episode of Trial Balloon briefly pointed to last week’s show. That’s now been fixed. You may need to re-download the episode in your podcast player.
An investigation into who should be blamed is now underway.
The FBI has fired a special agent who previously helped oversee public corruption cases, including an investigation that became part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into President Trump — another apparent casualty of the Trump administration’s retribution push, CNN reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
